Professor Paul LeBlanc has retired from the Department of Biological Sciences effective at the end of the fall semester. We will miss Paul’s wisdom and insight and his encyclopedic knowledge of the curriculum and course-planning process. A reception celebrating Paul’s retirement was held on December 8.  

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A recent article co-authored by Dr. Ryan Earley was recently featured in Nature News. The article cast doubt on the use of mirrors in fish behavior studies.

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A team of researchers that included the laboratory of Drs. Guy and Kim Caldwell has shown that low levels of the phospholipid phosphatidylethanolamine lead to high levels of the protein alpha-synuclein, a protein linked to Parkinson’s Disease. The work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Biological Sciences doctoral student Brandon Hill is attending this week a conference featuring 37 Nobel Prize winners, in Lindau Germany. The conference will feature lectures and workshops by the laureates. Hill was selected to attend as one of 600 graduate students from 80 countries. He is working in the laboratory of Dr. Carol Duffy.

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Dr. Laura Berkowitz, Laboratory Manager for the laboratory of Drs. Kim and Guy Caldwell, was featured in a recent article in Nature, concerning lab-manager jobs as an alternative to tenure track faculty positions.

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Professor John Clark writes, concerning his Alabama in Ecuador Tropical Plant Diversity class: “We completed a quantitative study of canopy trees in a recently established reserve (EcoMinga’s Rio Zunac).  Some highlights include the collection of three different species of Mangolia and significant range extensions of canopy tree species. Preliminary determinations suggest that we discovered at least four new species to science.” Links to images, and to a video and a blog: Cloud Forest Alto Coca Rio Zuñac Otavalo Youtube video […]

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A UA-led research group has identified a link between the insulin-like signaling pathway, which regulates aging, glycolysis, and neurodegeneration caused by protein misfolding. The research was carried out in the laboratories of UA faculty members Guy Caldwell, Kim Caldwell and Janis O’Donnell, and at Harvard University.  The report will appear in the July 1 issue of the journal Cell Metabolism.

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Congratulations to the following undergraduate students who were honored at the 2014 2014 Undergraduate Research Conference. Braxton Greer – 1st place, Oral Presentations (Mentor – Dr. Stevan Marcus) Grant Fairchild – 3rd place, Oral Presentation (Mentor – Dr. Kimberlee Caldwell) Matthew Larkin – Honorable Mention, Oral Presentation (Mentor – Dr. Stephen Secor) Hunter Dean – 2nd place, Poster Presentation (Mentor – Dr. Janis O’Donnell) Meagan Reif and Carrie Fisher – 4th place, Poster Presentation (Mentor – Dr. Stephen Secor) Robert […]

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Trey Melton was selected from a national pool of applicants to participate in March 2014 at the Bodega Bay Workshop in Applied Phylogenetics, sponsored by the Bodega Marine Laboratory and the University of California, Davis.

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The research of graduate student Scotty DePriest has been featured on the Graduate School spotlight page. Scotty’s research is on the invasive alga Grateloupia taiwanensis, under the supervision of Dr. Juan Lopez-Bautista.

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